


Balance

by tetsubinatu



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Drama, Gen, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-11
Updated: 2010-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-12 14:30:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/125861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetsubinatu/pseuds/tetsubinatu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uther is dying and Arthur looks to Merlin for help.</p><p>(Winning drabble from merlin_ldws Round 1.10)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Balance

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet was written for the Merlin_ldws competition in 2010. It won its week. The prompt was Uther & Merlin, Magic

"He's my _father_ " Arthur grits out.

"It's not that I don't want to!" Merlin tries to keep his voice down. Gaius is asleep in the chair beside Uther's bed, too exhausted to watch any longer. The likelihood is that Uther will never wake again.

"Look!" Merlin orders, taking Arthur's hands in his. "Look out of the window and tell me what you see." He mutters the words of the spell low but Arthur casts a resentful look at him before obeying.

"What am I seeing?" He is bewildered.

"Magic."

Arthur can see little sparks of light coursing through every living thing outside; rushing through the veins of the trees and lighting the pulsing bodies of his knights on the training field. Gawain glows brightest of all, while Kay is a bare shimmer of light.

High above them a kestrel gleams as it hovers and dips.

Arthur turns to ask more, but his eye catches his father and he stops quite still. Uther is the only living creature he has seen without a spark of light. The darkness is like a slap to the face.

"Why?" he breathes. Uther's breath rasps slow and uneven from the large, cold bed.

"I _think_..." Arthur knows that anxious, earnest voice, trusts it beyond reason. "I think that he has rejected magic so strongly that the magic rejected him back. I... I'm sorry Arthur. I don't have anything to _work with_!"

Arthur nods, unseeing.

"You may go," he says, reaching out to take his father's hand.

The blinding light that is Merlin slips quietly out of the door. Arthur kneels there beside his father's bed until Gaius wakes to tell him what he already knows.


End file.
